


Between Sleeping and Awake

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Divergent Timelines, M/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23582689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: Every night, Fenris dreams of killing Danarius.His dreams become more complicated after he meets Hawke.
Relationships: Fenris/Male Hawke
Comments: 22
Kudos: 74





	Between Sleeping and Awake

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2015. The Quarantine is good for cleaning out my Word docs, apparently.

**I.**

When the Master no longer has use of him, Fenris returns to his chambers.

He looks forward to it after the drudgery of shadowing Danarius through his affairs. He uncinches the pieces of his armor and sighs as they lift off, arranging them on the stand that is the only thing in his cell aside from a cot and two pails. He sits down on the cot, washes his face and hands in one bucket, allows himself the longest held piss of his life in the other, and curls up on his side in the darkness. 

Already his mind maps out his schedule for tomorrow. Rise before dawn, train for two hours, alert the servants when the Master wakes, stand guard at his table while he breaks his fast, accompany him to the tax office-

There is no room in his thoughts for himself, nor does he want there to be. If there is one quality his Master prizes above all others, it is his ability to harbor no secrets.

* * *

**II.**

He falls back into his old routine in Kirkwall. He no longer has to wake before dawn, yet he does anyway. There is no need for him to patrol the corridors of his desiccated mansion like an angry ghost, and yet what else is he supposed to do with his time? 

The only balm for his restlessness is the hour before sleep, when he imagines what he will do if he ever sees Danarius again.

The fantasy is a well-worn bone, turned over a thousand-thousand times, yet he sinks his teeth into it all the same.

In the fantasy, Danarius arrives in Kirkwall haughty, sure of himself, with only a small regiment of guards. Fenris imagines Danarius's smug face, the way he tugs his robes away from the muck of Kirkwall's streets the same way he did in Minrathous. Why he does not simply wait on the ship and send his guards ahead....Fenris ignores these sticking points.

Because Fenris is waiting in the mansion. And Danarius has underestimated him for the last time.

He skips over the less interesting bits- the fact that Hawke and his companions wait in the shadows with swords and arrows and magic. They tear apart the invading party like dogs on rabbits, and leave only Danarius cowering on the floor.

It is around this time that Fenris realizes he is being foolish. Danarius would never cower. He would never come to Kirkwall. But the look on his face when Fenris lifts him with the same barbed-tip gauntlets he commissioned for his little wolf all those years ago and shreds his throat with them-

A vein of white hot pleasure twists through him with which no amount of wine can compare. He lets himself fall into a lonely sleep.

* * *

**III**.

It is his third year in Kirkwall when Hawke gives him a gift.

"A...book?" says Fenris.

"Good to know your eyes still work," said Hawke. "It's about Shartan, the elf who freed the slaves. I saw it at the market and thought of you."

Fenris sighs. "Slaves are not permitted to read. It is wasted on me." 

"I could teach you."

A preposterous suggestion. Aside from his mercenary jobs, Fenris shares no company.

And yet the promise of future meetings with someone, anyone causes something inside him to wake up and stretch.

He agrees, against his better judgment. Hawke is a little too pleased for Fenris' tastes, and schedules that they meet twice a week in the evenings. He elects to bring wine from his new mansion's well stocked cellars, and Fenris must admit he finds that agreeable.

He is so tired of Aggregio Pavali.

* * *

**IV.**

Fenris is a poor student. 

His attention wanders during lessons. He feels patronized by the slow way Hawke pronounces letters, and even more so by the drawings he is instructed to make on the slate. 

A is for Apple.

B is for Bee.

C is for Cat. 

Hawke takes a perverse pleasure in his tutelage. He genuinely seems to enjoy forcing Fenris to painstakingly, humiliatingly, stumble through children's books. It comes to a breaking point one evening when Fenris, sick to death of Henry the Hungry Wyvern, throws the book against the wall. 

"Kaffas, this is pointless!" He grabs the nearest bottle of wine and tugs out the cork. 

"Pointless?" says Hawke. "Last week you didn't even know the alphabet. What are you talking about?" 

"It is too difficult." Fenris sounds petulant, and he knows it. "It should not be this hard." 

Hawke strokes his mabari's ears. The dog has been a constant companion during these lessons, farting and drooling under the table. 

"Anything worth doing is hard. Here." Hawke picks up the slate and writes out a word. "What does this say?" 

"Flo...Flower," says Fenris. 

"And this?" He writes another word. 

"Can....d...Candle," says Fenris. 

"Good. And this one?" 

Fenris mouths the sounds and says, "cock." 

He gives Hawke an acid glare. Hawke's grin is insufferable. 

"A week ago, you wouldn't have been able to read that. Now you can. Just think of what you'll know by this time next week," says Hawke. 

"A litany of vulgarities, no doubt," says Fenris, but despite himself, he smiles.

* * *

**V.**

"Sorry I'm late." Hawke tugs his scarf loose and sets it near the fire to dry. "Anders' bloody clinic flooded again and he needed help moving his supplies."

Fenris had worried he might have been jumped by bandits, but does not say so. Nor does he mention the strange pang of jealousy he feels at the news that Hawke was with the mage while he waited for him. "Two hours worth of supplies, I take it." 

"You'd be amazed how many dirty blankets one man can own. Now, you won't believe what I have."

The sting of waiting is dulled somewhat when Hawke produces a bottle of blueberry wine from his bag.

"I know you hate the sweet stuff, but this one will really curl your toes."

"It cannot be worse than last week's," said Fenris. 

"Ouch! You're hard to please, you know that?" 

"That is the definition of 'taste.'" 

Hawke laughs, and Fenris is suddenly, stupidly relieved that he is here. They sit down and drink. Somehow, these nights have become the highlight of Fenris's dreary life. He looks forward to them, and is sorry when they end. 

He does not like to think on why. 

* * *

**VI.**

There is a night where everything shifts.

Fenris listens to Hawke's rumbling drone as he reads aloud from a book about the failed Exalted March on Minrathous. His eyes drift over to the dark hair curled around the unlaced neck of Hawke's shirt.

Fenris is close enough to smell the musk of his sweat. He detects the scent of his dog, and that strange, hypnotic odor that lingers now in the fabric of the chair Hawke sits in during their lessons- a scent that belongs to him alone.

It takes him a moment to realize Hawke has stopped reading.

He looks up, and finds Hawke staring at him. The intensity of his gaze twists something hot and miserable and aching through Fenris so quickly he feels sick.

"I think that's enough for today." Fenris kicks the chair accidentally as he rises. "It is late, you should....yes."

He stands awkwardly at the door. Hawke doesn't move for a long time. He closes the book, stands, gathers his cloak, and stands toe to toe with him.

"Until next time," he whispers, and takes his leave.

It is only after he is gone that Fenris realizes Hawke has left his scarf. It is red silk, an obvious gift, perhaps from his mother? Fenris hesitates, then picks it up and presses it to his nose. 

The scent lingers in his nostrils as he lies in bed. He throws himself violently onto his stomach and tries to imagine tearing Danarius' throat out with his barbed-tip fingers.

But all he can see is Hawke's smile.

* * *

**VII.**

Hawke is late again.

Fenris does not blame him, until he arrives and says,

"Sorry, Anders is a wreck. One of the patients he's been nursing took a turn for the worse. Maker, it's been a rough-"

"He seems to need you to nurse him more often than not," Fenris snaps.

"He's all alone down there," said Hawke. "He needs a friend."

"He needs a hot brand and a cold cell."

"Don't joke about that."

"Should I be more like you, and pretend he does not take advantage of you as if you were a fool?" 

"I said I was sorry."

"That is hardly the point." 

He knows he has revealed too much, because the expression on Hawke's face goes tight.

"You really don't get it, do you?"

Before Fenris can reply Hawke crowds him until his back is against the wall.

Time runs dry. 

Hawke leans in, haltingly, as if Fenris is a beast in a trap that might bite. This patronizing approach should enrage him, but Fenris only feels something soft under his ribs as Hawke presses his lips to the corner of his mouth.

His beard tickles as he pulls away. There is a moment, a hesitation between two places, between _more_ and _enough_ and _yes_ and _no_ and _want_ and _disgust_ , and Fenris can suddenly imagine himself grabbing Hawke's face and dragging him down into a breathless kiss-

But the moment passes. The dream ends. Hawke pulls away with fear in his eyes. He apologizes quickly and flees, leaving Fenris alone in his mansion.

* * *

**VIII.**

Hawke's mother is dead.

Fenris stays away until the funeral is over. Whether out of cowardice or politeness, he cannot decide.

The servants do not bother to announce his presence. He stalks the steps to the landing where he knows Hawke's bedroom is. It occurs to him that he has never seen this part of the house before.

Hawke sits on the bed and stares at the fire, still dressed in a black mourning cloak. He lifts his head with an unreadable expression.

Fenris enters the room and sits next to him on the bed. He has no words. A life of slavery did not teach him gentleness. Whatever there is between them, this is all he has to offer. The best he can do is sit with Hawke for as long as he needs. 

No matter how long it takes. 

* * *

**IX**.

They are making their way along the coast when it happens. Ambush. Hadriana.

His master shows himself at last.

Fenris feels like himself for the first time in years. His blood is spiked with rage. He is an animal, pacing, snarling, every nerve in his body incandescent with hate. It's in his skin, in his blood, and Maker does it feel good.

He barely hears Hawke ask what he wants to do. He barely notices Hawke or Isabela or Aveline as they run like a pack up the mountain to the ancient slave pens. He barely feels the blood of slavers as it washes over him, barely notices when he licks it off his mouth instead of wiping it, barely pays attention to the slave girl Hawke is giving coin to because there is no time.

He has her scent. Hadriana, the bitch is near, and he can taste her fear. The walls of the pens are dripping with the blood of slaves she's slaughtered, and within the hour her blood will be on them too.

He feels the squish of her insides when he plunges his hand into them.

And then it's over. Hadriana is dead. He has a sister. The rage washes out of him.

He is cold.

"Maybe we should go, Fenris." Hawke touches his shoulder, and Fenris shrugs him off.

"No, I don't want you 'comforting' me," he spits. He's tired, can't think, can't process, so he leaves, ignoring the worry on Hawke's face. 

That night he goes to bed trying to remember a sister that might not exist, from the life of a man who might as well be dead.

* * *

**X.**

It is agony.

He is a wolf again. He has found his skin and shrugged it back on. Pacing. Pacing. Endlessly pacing and drinking and breaking. Nothing in the mansion is outside his rage. Bottles, furniture, pillows, nothing survives if he can get his hands on it. The wine is no longer a cool cloth for his mind but a struck match. He presses the barbed tips of his gauntlets into his throbbing temple and resists the urge to press harder.

A sister.

He has a sister.

In Qarinus. She might as well be on the moon.

Fenris grabs a random bottle off the table and chugs it. The hugeness of it all suffocates him. How will he find her? How will he contact her if he does find her? What will it mean if he does?

And Danarius. Danarius behind it all. This could be bait, a bloody leg of lamb his little wolf cannot resist. Fenris's appetites will destroy him if he is not careful. Hunger for vengeance, for answers, for memory, for-

Tart sweetness coils over the back of his tongue. He looks down, and realizes the bottle he holds is Hawke's. The blueberry wine.

And there is the balm he is looking for. It spreads cool and wintery across his brow. Strange, that after so many months of aching, the thought of Hawke now only gives him peace.

A possibility begins to take shape in his mind.

It is foolish, a distraction, an attempt to forget what he has learned.

But Qarinus is hundreds of miles away, the life he had before the ritual lost.

The Amell Estate is a ten minute walk.

And he is so weary of pain. 

* * *

**XI.**

"I have been thinking of you," he blurts out in the foyer. "In fact, I have been able to think of little else. Command me to go, and I shall." 

Hawke swallows thickly. "No need." 

The evening is young. Hawke takes him to bed, and Fenris lets him. By the time he collapses between Hawke's legs, drenched in sweat, and Hawke's fingers slowly push the damp hair from his face, he knows he is lost.

"It's all right," Hawke whispers, folding him into his arms. "It's all right."

Fenris believes him. He falls asleep, and for the first time in his life, he does not dream.

* * *

**XII.**

"Are you sure you're all right, elf?" Varric waves a hand in front of his face at the Hanged Man. "You do know you look like you've been drugged, right?"

Fenris contentedly sips his ale.

He returns to his mansion and finds Hawke still asleep in his bed. He strips off his clothes, lifts the sheets, and slides in next to him. Hawke murmurs and rolls over, pulling Fenris against him until they fit together, a shared shape of peace.

On some level he knows this is foolishness. Hadriana. His sister. Danarius. These things will not go away. They drum against the inside of his skull.

But then Hawke kisses him, and he does not care.

It is like living under glass. Time moves differently for them. He's saturated, drowning, glutting on a good thing. Outside, the city is in turmoil, but in here? 

"We'll have to come up for air, eventually," says Hawke. They have wasted another day in bed. Fenris feels like he's underwater as he rolls on top of him, kissing his shoulder.

"Perhaps," he murmurs. "I like the view from up here."

Hawke doesn't ask him about his sister. Fenris doesn't ask about the Qunari. They both have problems they're avoiding.

If this is what it's like to forget, he can't say he blames whoever he was before for choosing it.

"You know, I'm starting to think we're meant for each other," says Hawke.

"Sure of that, are you?" asks Fenris, on the edge of sleep. 

"Millions of smiles in the world and yours is my favorite, what are the odds?" 

* * *

**XIII.**

They're kissing behind the Hanged Man when it happens. They had snuck out of a card game, protesting unconvincingly the need to relieve themselves to their jeering friends, and now Hawke's lips are at his neck, his hand squeezing Fenris in a way that makes him think he will die.

The slave hunters take them unawares.

It happens too fast. Hawke pushes Fenris behind him and unsheathes his dagger in one fluid motion. He takes a step, and an arrow pierces his throat.

Fenris notes this clinically as he cuts the hunters down. It does not matter, because Hawke cannot die. Fenris will not allow him to die.

He thinks this as he pulls Hawke's head into his lap. Hawke's eyes roll wild and scared, tugging at the arrow with a sad look as if to say, look love, this little stick is taking my life away, this little piece of wood is killing me.

Fenris rips it out and presses hard, but it is too late. Hawke's eyes unfocus.

And then Fenris is alone in an alley.

It is a short walk back to his mansion, where an animal is breaking things, an animal is howling, an animal is screaming.

The way forward becomes clear.

* * *

**XIV.**

He uses Varric's contacts. His friends are in mourning, Aveline cannot stop crying.

Fenris cannot remember crying. He is sure he does not miss it.

He gets ahold of his sister in Qarinus. He sets a time a year from now. He waits.

He wastes every day alone in his corpse of a mansion. He refuses to hear what news is brought to him-that the Amell state is sold. The house is empty. A funeral. A service.

He hears none of it. His mind when he sleeps is full of blood.

A dream of Danarius's throat coming apart between his fingers.

* * *

**XV.**

The day comes, and he knows without guessing what he will find.

He goes to the Hanged Man alone. His eyes scan over the red haired elf who rises to greet him by his true name, up the stairs to the face he hates.

Danarius is older than he remembers. Almost elderly.

Nevertheless, it is nothing for him to fling Fenris across the Hanged Man like a broken doll with a wave of his staff. It cannot even be called a fight. 

"Damn you!" Fenris shakes and cannot stop. "Damn you for taking the one thing, the one thing-"

Fenris rushes him again. Again, he is thrown across the room. Again, and again, until he is covered in blood and beating his fists on the floor. He screams, and screams, and screams.

Danarius endures it until Fenris' voice is gone. Then he raises an eyebrow and says, "Are you quite done?"

He is. There is nothing left inside him. He hears Varric calling out to him, but cannot make out the words. A slaver rips the clothes from his back, and he lets himself be walked naked, in the way of all runaway slaves, through the city and up a gangplank to a ship. A hot brand is pressed into the lyrium on his forehead, and he knows no more.

* * *

**I.**

This is the time of day Fenris looks forward to the most.

Not shadowing his Master, which is tedious, nor training in the yard, which gives him aches in his joints he never had before.

No, it comes after he has fed, bathed, and carried Danarius' withered body to bed. When he returns to his cell and strips himself of his armor and lies down to sleep.

Because Fenris has a secret.

A slave is not meant to have secrets, but Fenris has one. In the darkness, he presses the red scarf around his wrist to his nose, and lets memory wash over him.

It is strange. Sometimes it is the taste of blueberries, other times a laugh. They are like sparks in the darkness of his mind, lighting a tapestry whose whole is lost to him, known only in flickers.

He holds himself in the dark.

No matter how he reaches for it, the past remains beyond his grasp. All he can do is dream of it in his little cell beside his master's bedroom, and let himself drift into a memory of warm arms, of someone far away who might yet live, who might yet love him, in that place between sleeping and awake.


End file.
